RTC Telangana staff to get pay in instalments?

HYDERABAD: Though the Kiran Kumar Reddy government has been successful in making the Telangana RTC employees to withdraw their 27-day strike, but the RTC management is not in a position to pay October's salaries to its staff due to poor financial condition. Besides existing losses of about `2,300 crore, the corporation faced another `210 crore loss due to the recent strike.The transport utility has a total of about 1.2 lakh employees which include 58,000 staff from the Telangana region.It is learnt the RTC management has decided to pay salaries to its workers belonging to Telangana in a phased manner due to financial constraints. Sources said that the RTC vice-chairman and managing director B Prasada Rao, in letters addressed to executive directors of Telangana region, directed them to stagger the payment of salaries for October and release payments in batches from November 1 to 10.A note for schedule of payments will be released separately.This decision was taken recently keeping in view dislocation of work and delay in compilation and generation of salary bills due to the strike.As for staff belonging to other two regions (Andhra and Rayalaseema), salaries will be paid to them on November 1.In general, the RTC management pays salaries to its workers in three phases- some workers get salaries for the month concerned on 28th of the same month, Hyderabad staff are paid by end of the month and workers across the state are paid on the first of next month.About `240 crore per month is required towards payment of salaries to staff.The RTC management hopes the state government will immediately extend financial assistance to the corporation to overcome the crisis.It wanted the government to release the remaining budget of `150 crore allocated towards purchase of new buses.The government has recently released `50 crore.The management has planned to utilise these funds towards payment of salaries.It is also planning to depend on daily collections for the purpose.On the other hand, National Mazdoor Union leaders are not happy with the management's decision.NMU general secretary Syed Mahmood demanded for payment of all salaries on November 1 itself.He also wanted the government for immediate release of arrears to be paid to the RTC.The NMU leaders will meet the RTC managing director on Monday.